Premiership Football

OVERVIEW

One aspect of football that has been neglected by sports replay games producers, ourselves included, is the fascination of the league table itself, its initial formation after 3 or 4 matches, the early season ups and downs as some clubs put together a run of three wins or conversely, lose three on the trot, and thereafter, as the season progresses, the steady climb up the table or decline as injuries, suspension and transfers in and out begin to influence team performances. Even in the many computer management games available today there are too many competing interests to really savour the ever changing league table, too many individual player ‘attributes’ to worry about, too many decisions to be made on team selection and tactical formations, too may distractions in the form of negotiating players’ terms and transfers, supervising training and getting involved in tactical match decisions ’on the fly’.

Maybe it’s just a personal quirk but I love to study the lap chart of a Grand Prix (not that that changes too much these days), or run through the hourly positions at Le mans, check the scoring rate session by session at a Test match, watch how the top marathon runners work themselves up through the field, compare the kilometre times in a 10,000 metre track race or the split times of a downhill ski-ing event. More than all these I find football league tables a source of constant enjoyment and interest, OK, some people prefer train timetables and can spend hours planning a rail journey around the British Isles (not current rail timetables, of course, that would mean moving into the realms of fantasy role-playing), me, I can re-live a season of football with a collection of league tables and a few well chosen notes. And in these times of European places for the top finishers and three relegation spots to squabble over the interest is greater and more sustainable throughout the season.

So ’Premiership Football’ is another of my ’personal wish list’ projects, the chance to apply pure sports replay principles to a full premiership season, unfolding before your eyes in a playing time of ten to twelve hours, that’s not more than a few evenings of hard gaming. By releasing the game , with the 2001/2 season still fresh in your mind we hope you will find an added interest in seeing what might have been, or perhaps what actually was, as your own league table maps out your replay season for you.

Now to a few specifics. We use Team Squad Ratings, attack and defence separately, reflecting the squad strengths of the 2001/2 premiership teams. These are constructed on a goals scored and conceded basis using the final league table to ensure an accurate statistical base. We also use individual team ratings for Injuries and Suspensions, for Injuries reflecting the effect of an injury to a key player of players on the Squad strength of the team, thus ensuring that the teams with smaller and less flexible squads (e.g. Ipswich, Southampton) will suffer more severely from injury absentees, for Suspensions penalising those teams that have proved over the season that they are rarely able to field a full strength side because of this reason (e.g. Arsenal, Leeds). We also allocate Cash to each club, allowing the rich to enter the transfer market more freely than their less wealthy rivals, provided the right player comes along of course. Transfers in and out, injuries and suspensions are dealt with in a fairly abstract way, as is necessary in a game that is about teams and not individuals. Opportunities will arise to strengthen the Attack/ Defensive Squad Values, players may have to be sold which have the reverse affect, all without names but all having an immediate effect on team strengths and performances.

A day’s fixtures, whether it be just a couple of mid week matches or a full Saturday/Sunday programme, are ‘valued’ as a complete package before any match is resolved. This involves checking for Injuries and Suspensions on a team-by- team basis and then assessing which Goal Card to use for each time by deducting one team’s Defence Squad value from the opponent’s Attack Squad value and rounding the result down to a figure divisible by ten, thus 46 –17=29, rounded down to 20 indicating the Goal Card 2. When all matches have been ‘valued’ a roll of two pairs of coloured dice per match will produce a half time score line (and something to savour!), a second roll for each will give the full time result. Book keeping consists of marking up the result on the Results Matrix and up dating both the Cumulative Points and Goals For and Against Charts. Okay? Right, on to the rules.